Aaron Lennon has revealed that Everton almost signed Erling Haaland for just £2-3 million, but the club's former owner Farhad Moshiri refused to sign the deal.
Haaland has scored 76 goals in 82 Premier League games since joining Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund in 2022, but the forward could have plied his trade in England much sooner.
Steve Walsh, who was Everton's director of football between 2016 and 2018, had brokered a deal for Haaland to make the move to Goodison Park and Lennon recalls meeting him at the club's training ground.
“This is a mega story,” Lennon told the Football Daily podcast. “I remember Erling Haaland walking around the building while Steve Walsh came up to me in the physio room.
“Steve Walsh introduced him to me and said, 'Oh look Aaron, we've got Haaland. Do you know his dad, Alfie? The kid from Leeds. Hopefully we get him here'. And I thought, 'Oh wow, I haven't heard a lot about him'.
“I think he was 15 or 16 years old and I never saw him again. I think they could have gotten him for two or three million and I don't think Moshiri signed for that. Can you imagine? Erling Haaland would do that.” have signed for Everton.”
Walsh has also previously spoken about his bid to bring Haaland to Merseyside, revealing the deal was one of a number of transfers he lined up for Everton before club chiefs refused to sanction them.
“When I was at Everton I offered them Andrew Robertson and Harry Maguire deals when they were at Hull and it was worth £20m for the pair,” Walsh told Athletic in 2019. “Everton didn't want to hire them.
“I had also done a deal for Jonny Evans before he came to Leicester but again they wouldn't take him. Erling Haaland, the striker at Salzburg, I had him and his father at the club in a deal for four million euros (£ 3.3 million). The club did not want to support me.”
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